Rose's Culinary Adventures
by Kay-Dee-S
Summary: Chapter 8 /This is a C-A-M-P-F-I-R-E-S-O-N-G Song…Not really…\ up as of 9.20.08. As the title implies, this involves Rose and food. WARNING: All characters suffer from various degrees of OOCness. Read, review, and enjoy!
1. Brownies

(This is the first humor fic I ever wrote. So don't hate, appreciate! Idea for this chapter came about one night when I was eating the brownies my mother makes from time to time which are really really good.

**DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN LEGEND OF DRAGOON.**)

_**Chapter 1: The Day that Rose Discovered Brownies**_

One day Rose was bored so she decided to go to Dart and Shana's house. She was really, _really_ bored and knew that torturing the happy couple in some way, shape or form would greatly amuse her. After she bothered them for a while, she planed to go torture Meru. One of Rose's most frequent thoughts was, _'Wow, I really hate that happy, hyper Wingly!' _Her other frequent thought was, _'Lloyd is SO hot!'_

When Rose finally arrived at Dart and Shana's house, she just walked inside, not even bothering to knock on the door. She should have known better, seeing as the last time she had done that, she had found Dart and Shana doing it on their kitchen table. However, Rose figured that after that incident they would know better than to ever do it there again. Anyway, after wandering through the living room and the dining room, Rose came to the kitchen. Shana was taking a baking pan out of the oven and Rose could smell chocolate.

"Do you want brownies?" asked Shana, being the friendly, but idiotic, person that she is.

"Brownies?" asked Rose. "No thank you. I don't eat little first grade Girl Scouts."

"Don't be silly!" said Shana, as she cut the brownies into their familiar squares. "They're not little girls; they're chocolate!"

"CHOCOLATE!" yelled Rose, as Shana put the brownies in a pile on a plate. "GIMME! NOW!"

"Uh- oh," whispered Shana, who had just remembered the Christmas party.

_FLASHBACK_

Rose had just eaten all of the Christmas cookies so fast it was as if she had inhaled them. Some of the cookies were frosted; all of them were sugary. She began to run around the room like a maniac, while singing Christmas carols at the top of her lungs. Then she stopped and attacked Lloyd by snogging him. Strangely enough, she didn't remember the incident the next day. However, she did have a sort of hangover from eating all of those sugar cookies. "Most people get hangovers from alcoholic beverages," commented Albert at the time. "However, it seems our friend Rose gets hangovers from sugar highs."

_END FLASHBACK_

While Shana had been having her little flashback, Rose had proceeded to eat the entire plate of brownies. "UH- OH!" yelled Shana, running for the cover of the kitchen table.

"What? Did something explode outside? Is there going to be an earthquake? A tornado? A tidal wave?" As Rose's questions went on and on and _on_ it became evident to Shana that the sugar had kicked in. She was impressed. It had taken Rose two seconds to become hyper while it took Meru five and Shana herself ten. Just as Shana was thinking this, Dart walked in the door, having returned from wherever he had been.

"Shana, I'm home!" he shouted. As he entered the kitchen, his jaw dropped. His eyes went from Rose, still asking Shana endless questions, to Shana, still hiding under the table, to the empty brownie pan, which lay in the sink. It took a surprisingly short time for his very small brain to work out what was going on. He, too, remembered the Christmas party.

"Can I have the recipe? Huh? Huh? Huh? Can I? Can I? Can I?" Shana, in an act of desperation, threw the recipe card to Rose, who promptly shouted, "Yippee!" and ran out the door.

After she was gone, Dart burst into tears. "She ate all of my brownies!" he cried in extreme despair.

Shana didn't even try to comfort him. Instead she just collapsed in a heap on the sofa.

_20 minutes later_

Rose arrived back at her house and began to closely examine the recipe.

Ingredients

½ C. butter

2 squares chocolate

1 C. sugar

2 eggs

½ tsp vanilla

¾ C. flour

¼ tsp salt

Directions

Melt butter and chocolate in a large saucepan. Remove from heat and stir in the remaining ingredients.

Pour into a greased pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 min. Cool and cut into squares.

The recipe was written in Shana's nearly illegible handwriting. Plus Rose didn't understand some of the symbols. "Only one C of sugar? And what does C mean anyway? Carton? Cab? Caboose?" Rose went over the largest cabinet in her kitchen and opened it. It contained 1,234 cartons of sugar. She dumped 2...hundred of them into a bowl, along with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, a big spoonful of salt, a carton of flour, and two whole eggs. Then she put 2 chocolate bars into a pan with a 2 sticks of butter, seeing as that was half of the carton that the butter sticks had come in. She melted the chocolate/ butter mixture with a blast of Dragoon power and then added all of the other stuff. Then she blasted all that with her Dragoon power. It caught on fire. Now she had a nice, round, thing of something that resembled a brownie. As she cut them into pieces, she thought, _'Wow! They must taste really good! I should publish a cookbook!'_

Lloyd chose that moment to walk in, wondering if Rose would like to practice sword fighting with him. He found her in the kitchen, covered from head to toe with flour and extinguishing a plate of very lumpy brownies. "Hi, Rose!" said Lloyd cheerfully. Rose turned around, holding the plate of brownies gone horribly, horribly wrong out to him.

"Do you want some brownies, Lloyd?" she asked him. Lloyd noted that there were still little streams of smoke coming out of the "brownies".

He eyed them _very_ cautiously. _'Did she concoct these brownies specifically to poison people and is using me as a test case or did she just have no clue what she was doing when she made them?'_ "Uh...um. I uh...um...gotta go to the dentist! Yeah, that's it, the dentist! I'm going to the dentist so I can't have any sugar. Gotta go! Bye!" Lloyd ran away from Rose and her evil brownies as fast as his legs would carry him. He ran through several walls on the way, but he didn't think that Rose would care, given her current condition.

It was then that Rose's hyperness wore off. She looked around the kitchen. There was flour _everywhere_, including on her. She looked down at her brownies and saw how fucked up they looked. "Maybe they still taste good?" Rose asked herself doubtfully. She picked one up off the plate and bit into it. "EWW!" she screamed, dropping the brownie on the floor. "I just offered these to my beloved Lloyd and called them _brownies!_ These are like toxic waste!" Rose looked out the kitchen window, to see Meru passing by. "Then again," said Rose, heading for the door, "maybe Meru would _like_ some brownies!" She raced out the door and after the Wingly.

(Just in case you guys didn't know, I love reviews. Even flames!)  



	2. Christmas Cookies

(Nothing much to say here this time around, except the usual.

**DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN LEGEND OF DRAGOON.** I only wish I did.)

_**Chapter 2: Rose's Christmas Cookie Experiment**_

Rose shook her head in disbelief. She couldn't believe that she had allowed herself to be talked into helping Shana bake for the Christmas party. Normally Rose was the one who talked people into doing things but Shana had, in the end, won her over. "And it'll never happen again," she muttered rather darkly. Now, however, she was in Shana's kitchen wearing a frilly pink apron. And hating every moment of it.

Meanwhile, in the living room, the others were shaking their heads in disbelief. "You're going to let her help you _bake?_" asked Albert sounding as if the world would end if it happened.

"You no remember what happen when she make brownies?" asked Kongol.

"Her brownies nearly killed me!" exclaimed Meru, who still shuddered in terror at the thought of the taste of Rose's brownies. She hadn't been able to eat baked goods since the incident.

"Look," said Shana sounding smart and mature for one of the only times in her life, "last time she was baking without supervision _and_ she was sugar high. But this time I'll be there to watch her." After a pause she added, "I'll make sure she doesn't poison the cookies." A sigh of relief went around the little circle.

Back in the kitchen, Rose was busy inspecting the cookie recipe. _'How am I supposed to kill off these people if there's no poison in it?'_ Then the light bulb clicked in her head. _'Maybe they have rat poison under the sink!'_ So Rose went and checked. No rat poison but there was a small bottle labeled as arsenic. Not pausing to wonder why they had it, Rose picked it up and poured it into the bowl of cookie dough that was sitting on the counter and mixed it in. Then she returned the bottle to its spot under the sink.

Shana reentered the kitchen with the sound of happy conversation coming through the door behind her. "Rose," said Shana, "it's time to cut out the gingerbread people!" So with that she split the dough (with the arsenic mixed in) with Rose and gave her a rolling pin.

"What the hell am I supposed to do with this?" asked Rose, banging the rolling pin on the counter.

"Make the dough flat so we can cut out gingerbread people!"_'_

_'Oh my fucking god,'_ thought Rose, as she rolled out the dough.

Then when Shana deemed that the dough was flat enough, she gave Rose cookie cutters. There weren't just ones of people. There were some shaped like bells, stars, and even (for some reason unbeknownst to Rose) one in the shape of a foot. Rose quickly made three feet and put them on her tray. Then she took a man shape and cut it out. Next, when Shana wasn't looking, she took a cookie cutter that had curvy edge and cut off the head of the gingerbread man. It looked like someone had bitten off the head. She cut out another gingerbread man and then attached the head of the first gingerbread man to the second gingerbread man's hand. Then she made two more gingerbread people, a man and a woman, and fashioned a gingerbread gun which she stuck onto the gingerbread woman's hand. By this point Rose's tray was full and Shana didn't even take a look at the cookies on the sheet as she placed them into the oven.

Ten minutes later the cookies were ready to come out of the oven. Shana gave Rose her tray back and told her to decorate the cookies with the various frostings that were set on the counter. Rose painted the feet with the black frosting for no apparent reason. Then she painted the head in the hand of the gingerbread guy red with x's for eyes. She gave the guy holding the head a really malicious facial expression. As for the woman with the gun, the face was frosted into a really angry expression. Then Rose frosted the man's face into a scared expression and put a spot of red frosting on his crotch. Rose smiled in satisfaction. It looked like the one guy had ripped the other guy's head off and like the woman had shot the man in the crotch.

Finally, Shana thought to look over at Rose's work station. "Rose!" she shrieked. "What did you do to the cookies!"

"I made them more realistic. Do you really think that everyone is happy all the time?" Rose said while gesturing to Shana's finished cookies, where everything, even the hearts and bells, had smiley faces frosted onto them.

"_I'm_ happy all the time," said Shana. "Oh, well. We'll just have to bring the cookies out like that," she said with a shrug, still wearing a dopey smile on her face.

They put the cookies on a platter and brought them into the main room. Shana offered them to everybody. Rose politely declined, claiming that she wasn't hungry, but really remembering that she had put arsenic in the cookies. Rose's cookies were a hit.

"It's so original!" exclaimed Haschel, as he bit into the headless guy.

"I think you should make the cookies like this next year," said Dart as he bit off the head of the gun wielding woman.

Soon enough, all the cookies were gone. Rose rubbed her hands together in glee. As Dart hit the floor, Rose thought_, 'That stuff sure is fast acting. I should've done this a long time ago.'_ After Dart fell Shana and then Haschel, Albert, and Kongol in that order. Kongol was last because the arsenic took longer to work through his body because he was so big. The only one left, besides Rose of course, was Meru. Rose groaned in annoyance as Meru came up to her asking question, after question, after question. "_Do you not know how to shut up?_" Rose screamed at Meru, right before stabbing her with her rapier. Rose grinned in satisfaction, something she didn't do often, as she looked around and realized that she was the only Dragoon left. Rose sped out of the house to go terrorize some townspeople on this merry holiday called Christmas.

(Reviews are much appreciated!)  



	3. Ha! It's Thanksgiving!

(Well, you guys seem to like this stuff that I write according to my whims, so I had to update it again! For once, I actually continued the plotline. I kind of had to, considering what happened last chapter and all. So yeah.

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN LEGEND OF DRAGOON OR ANYTHING ASSOCIATED WITH IT. But I'm pretty sure I own the idea of Knock-Out Juice.)

_**Chapter 3: It's time for Thanksgiving!**_

After Rose sped out the door, Dart sat up and shook his head. "Dude," he said, sounding very Keanu Reeves-ish, "what the hell just happened?" Slowly the others came to, except for Meru, who was lying on the floor with Rose's rapier sticking out of her chest.

"She must have put some of that Knock- Out Juice that I keep under the sink into the cookie dough when I wasn't looking," said Shana.

"Why you have Knock- Out Juice?" asked Kongol, whilst scratching his head in mild confusion. "Stuff barely legal."

"I went and bought a bottle after Dart went into hysterics over Rose eating his brownies. You see, I figured if it ever happened again, I would just knock him out and then when he woke up he would be much calmer," said Shana, with a shrug and a grin.

"Oh," said everyone but Dart and Shana. Dart put his hands on his hips and turned to Shana. "That was supposed to be a secret!" he cried.

"With friends like you've got," said Haschel, "things don't stay secret for very long."

"Well, first things first," said Albert, sounding very noble (rightfully so, since he is a king after all), "I think we should have Shana use the White Dragoon Power to revive Meru."

"Do I have to?" moaned Shana. "Yes!" said the others in unison. Shana sighed and mumbled a stream of what sounded like profanities before doing what she had been told to do.

Meru sat up and stretched, Rose's rapier still sticking out of her stomach. "What?" she asked, standing up. "Why is everyone staring at me?" Haschel nudged her and then pointed to the rapier. "Oh," she said and yanked it out. The hole closed and Meru was alive and completely healed.

"Now," said Albert, "we should find Rose and exact our revenge upon her." With that they left the house. And as they did so, the white Christmas Eve transformed into a sunny November day; Thanksgiving to be exact.

_**Meanwhile:**_

Rose barely even registered the change as she flew along. What she did register was that, all of a sudden, Dart was blocking her way. "Wait a minute," she said, coming to a complete halt in midair. "I thought I killed you."

"Well, apparently you didn't try hard enough, _'Rosie'_," Dart said, using Charle's nickname for her.

"Why you-," said Rose, lunging at him.

"Wait!" yelled Dart, suddenly fearing for his life. "Don't you know what day it is?"

"No. But what does that have to do with me killing you and then dismembering your dead body?"

"Ummm…Nothing at all. But anyway, it's Thanksgiving!"

Rose gave him a look that very clearly said, 'And I care _because?_'

"Look, let's just go to Indels Castle. The whole gang is there. We were gonna have a big feast but then realized that it wouldn't be any fun without you."

"What do I want to go eat turkey with you guys for?" _'Especially after I just tried to kill you,'_ she thought.

"Because," said Dart, "Haschel said he was gonna get the chef to make some more violent cookies!"

Rose wasn't convinced but she knew that Dart had a great deal of determination so she gave in, if only to shut him up. And with that, they flew off towards Bale.

_**At Indels Castle:**_

King Albert's kitchen was in a frenzy. Under the direction of Shana, they were rushing to cook the turkey. They also had several dishes of vegetables (including garlic mashed potatoes), stuffing, and several pies (apple, pumpkin, and coconut cream) in the works. (Dart had lied about the violent cookies). But the strangest thing was, the king had told his staff not to worry too much about getting everything perfect. All that mattered to him was the turkey.

"You see," Albert had said on the way to his castle, "turkey comes built in tryptophan."

Everyone gave him a look that clearly said, "Huh?" Kongol was the only one to say anything: "English, please."

"Sorry," said Albert apologetically. He was very often made aware that the intelligence of his friends didn't often match up to his. "Tryptophan is a chemical in turkey that makes people sleepy after eating a lot."

"I get it!" said Meru excitedly. "All we have to do is get Rose to eat a whole load of turkey and she'll fall asleep!"

"And we can play mean tricks on her!" said Shana, sounding a little more malevolent than usual.

So, getting back to the present, as Shana directed the kitchen staff, Meru and Haschel were helping to set the table as Albert awaited Dart and Rose in the throne room.

'What about Kongol?' you ask? Well, sadly, Albert's castle wasn't built to accommodate Gigantos because they were thought to be extinct at the time of its building, so he had to stay on a very nearby mountain. Currently, though, he was standing outside the castle, waiting for the act of revenge to go down.

When Dart and Rose landed on the balcony outside the throne room, they met up with Albert and immediately proceeded to the dining hall. Everything looked perfect: there was a giant bowl of succotash and equally large bowl of garlic mashed potatoes beside it. There was cranberry sauce (with that 'fresh from the can' shape) and not one, but two (!) kinds of stuffing!

Not to mention there was a big ass turkey sitting in the middle of the table.

Albert seated himself at the head of the table and everyone else seated themselves afterwards. On Albert's left hand side were Dart and Shana and on his right were Haschel and Meru. Rose was (intentionally) left the seat at the other end of the table. As the serving staff, well, served them, Rose sat there looking kind of bored and wasn't really paying attention. Which is why she didn't notice until everyone started eating that she had been given a good third of the turkey. She didn't really care, figuring that Albert didn't like having leftovers because of his kingly kingliness so she just ate what she had been given without complaining. Rose thought that it was a hell of a lot better than Virage meat, on which she had once survived for a month.

After the meal, everyone sat around the table talking. Soon, they heard a soft snoring coming from Rose's end of the table. "It seems," whispered Albert, "that our plan has succeeded." He snapped his fingers and two footmen carried Rose to the guest room.

"Well," said Haschel, standing in the doorway. "Do your 'thing' girls."

"I get to do her makeup!" said Dart making a break for the room.

"By girls, I meant Meru and Shana," said Haschel, taking hold of a fistful of Dart's shirt to hold his grandson back.

"Oh," said Dart, sounding sincerely disappointed. Albert and Haschel gave him a funny look. "I- I mean- I was just kidding!" Albert and Haschel promptly gave him, 'We'll believe it when we see it' looks. Meanwhile, Meru and Shana were carrying out part two of the plan.

_Six hours later:_

Rose awoke to the light of the Moon that Never Sets. Which was shining right in her face. As Rose stumbled to her feet and started to leave the room she passed a mirror and was quickly forced to do a double take. Her mirror image was wearing a frilly, glittery pink gown with puffed sleeves and a poufy skirt. On her feet were pink rhinestone studded pumps. Her hair was a mass of rumpled, squished, and tangled curls, there was enough makeup on her face to stock the shelves of the local CVS, and her nails were painted bright, fluorescent pink. She noted that she was wearing a tiara on her head. Worst of all, in her opinion, was the fact that her second best rapier was gone! (Her first best one had been used to stab Meru.)

She decided that one of three things had happened:

1. She had woken up in the alternate universe of some fan fiction writer.

2. She was now Glinda the Good Witch, but with a dye job.

3. The other Dragoons had decided to get revenge for the whole "killing them with Christmas cookies" thing.

The snickering outside the door helped her narrow it down to number three and she ran out the door yelling, "You had better give me back my things or I'm gonna have to go Black Monster on all of your asses!"

Things were finally back to "normal" in the kingdom of Serdio.

(Do your thing, people. All you have to do is click the little purple button and type a phrase or two!)


	4. Christmas in July: Part 1: The Request

(Been almost a year since my last chapter and I hope this one lives up to the other ones. In any case, I wrote this in July and only got around to typing it tonight and it's going to have at least two more parts. YAY FOR PLOTLINES! Also, Lloyd is going to be at the heart of this little plot line thingy. YAY FOR LLOYDNESS! Anyway, read, review, and enjoy!

DISCLAIMER: I DO _NOT_ OWN THE LEGEND OF DRAGOON IN ANY WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM. I think that I _do_ own the idea of an insanely rich Lloyd. I could be wrong about that, though.)

_**Chapter 4: Christmas in July Pt. 1: The Request**_

Lloyd was sunbathing on his tiled patio next to his Olympic sized, in ground, filled with salt water pool when his phone rang. With a sigh, he picked himself up from his towel and went inside his palatial house. He finally found one of his three cordless phones in his home movie theater. "Hello," he said into the phone. "Lloyd speaking. Who is this?"

"It's Dart."

'_Oh, hell,'_ thought Lloyd. "Who gave you this number?" he asked Dart.

"Huh?" asked Dart, obviously very confused.

"Oh, never mind," Lloyd sighed. "What do you want?"

"Well, you know what time of year it is, don't you?" asked Dart.

Lloyd thought about it for a moment and drew a blank. "No, Dart," said Lloyd, trying very hard to hide his growing impatience. "I haven't a clue about what time of year it is. Please enlighten me."

"Hold on a minute," said Dart.

Lloyd sat down in one of the plush red velvet theater chairs and thought, _'Remember, Dart is like an extremely temperamental five year old child.'_

Lloyd was torn away from his thoughts when he heard Dart yell, "Shana, what does 'enlighten' mean?"

"I don't know," said Shana. "Why don't you look it up?"

"Why can't you do it?" whined Dart.

"I'm busy making brownies."

"BROWNIES?!" Dart screamed, causing Lloyd to jump and hold the phone farther away from his ear. "Sorry about that," Dart said into the phone in a normal voice. Lloyd hesitantly brought the phone back to his ear as Dart said, "Anyway, we were wondering if we could hold the First Annual Christmas in July Barbecue at your place. Rose more or less wrecked Christmas in December, what with her cookies and all, so we're hoping that this can make up for it."

"And why at my house? I'm not even a Dragoon," asked Lloyd skeptically.

"Because you're our friend, Lloyd," said Dart in a voice that sounded awfully rehearsed to Lloyd's ears.

"And?" prompted Lloyd.

"Your house is biggest," Dart said quickly and quietly. "You didn't hear that from me, though."

"Why should I let you all come here after what happened the last time I played host to one of your little parties?"

_FLASHBACK_

Kongol runs towards Lloyd's pool. "CANNONBALL!" he yells, jumping in and causing a huge splash. Kongol sits in the bottom of the now empty pool as Shana stands at the edge glaring in at him. Her arms are crossed and she is tapping her foot angrily. The immense amount of water has caused her hair to poof out into an afro. Miranda and Haschel stand under an umbrella, perfectly dry, and laugh their asses off at her. "What?" Shana says. "Are either of you anything without your straightening iron?"

Meanwhile, Meru and Dart are playing DDR in Lloyd's basement arcade. Meru is on Heavy mode and getting all Perfects while Dart is on Beginner mode and failing miserably. "Stupid game!" he yells. "Why won't you let me win?" The song ends and Meru winds up with a AAA rating. Dart gets a D.

"D for Dart!" Meru chirps cheerfully as she scrolls through the song selection screen. Dart gets off the dance platform and puts his fist into the game's screen.

"Stupid game!" he yells again, before stomping off.

"I guess I don't get to play the winner, then?" asks Albert. Meru shakes her head and leads him over to a House of the Dead game.

Lloyd sneaks down a hallway and slips through the door to his library. "No one'll come here. I don't even think that any of them can read, besides Albert." A whip cracks and Lloyd jumps up about a foot in the air. He turns around to see Rose standing between him and the only way out decked out in full dominatrix gear and a look of horror and fear plants itself on his face.

"Hello, Lloyd darling," Rose says seductively as she cracks the whip again. Meru and Haschel are lurking outside the library doors, listening to what's going on inside. The sound of Lloyd screaming is heard followed by the sound of something ripping. At that very moment, Albert comes up the stairs followed by a very depressed looking Dart.

"Hey," Albert says, "do any of you know where Lloyd is?"

Someone screams from inside the library. "Hey! Wait! That doesn't bend that way!" Dart's face brightens up almost instantly and he turns back to the stairs.

"I gotta go get the others. They have got to hear this." He returns with Shana, Miranda, and Kongol just in time to hear the whip crack from behind the door.

"Thank you, mistress. May I have another?" CRACK "Thank you, mistress. May I have another?" CRACK

_END FLASHBACK_

"And you know, Lloyd," Dart was saying when Lloyd returned from his life scarring flashback, "you don't even have to worry about feeding us. We were thinking we'd do a potluck kind of thing. And we'll stay outside. And Kongol won't go in the pool. And we'll make sure that Rose doesn't have her dominatrix stuff before we come to your house. And I promise --"

Lloyd cut Dart off. "Okay! Okay!" he said, feeling the beginnings of a headache. "Cease your incessant babbling. You can have your goddamn party here. But I will definitely have to lay down some rules and guidelines."

"WOO-HOO!" screamed Dart, causing Lloyd to once again move the phone away from his ear. "Thanks a lot, Lloyd! Hey, Shana! What does 'incessant' mean?"

Lloyd hung up the phone and activated the recliner feature of his chair. "What have I just done?" he moaned. "I can feel the bruises on my ass already."

(You know you loved it so now tell me why!)  



	5. Christmas in July: Part 2: The Barbecue

(Before I begin, I'd like to thank the only person who reviewed the previous chapter! You know who you are! Also, please keep in mind that I write everything down in a notebook first and this was originally written last summer, hence the reference I make to the World Cup part way through. And I'm sorry for the long wait between chapters. I do have a life, even though it isn't much of one. Anyway, you know the drill: 

**DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN LEGEND OF DRAGOON.**)

_**Chapter 5: Christmas in July Pt. 2: The Barbecue**_

A week passed and the day of the party arrived. The morning of the party, Lloyd went around the house and hid all of his fragile items. He locked up all the rooms except for the first floor bathroom, living room, and the kitchen. At the bottom of the stairs, he placed a baby gate and a sign for some of the denser guests that read "NO ONE IS PERMITTED UPSTAIRS." Lloyd was giving his printouts of the house rules a final once over out on the patio when the first guests arrived. Meru and Miranda walked around to the back of the house where the pool was.

"Hey, Lloyd," said Meru. "I brought potato salad!"

"Yeah, and I brought coleslaw," added Miranda.

"That's nice," said Lloyd, who was slumped down in a pool chair as if he wanted to curl up in the fetal position. He waved a careless hand towards the table where his contribution, chips and dip, was already sitting. "Just put that stuff there."

"So what do we do now?" asked Miranda, seating herself at the edge of the pool where her feet dangled into the water.

"Where are Dart and Shana?" asked Lloyd. Just then, the phone, which was sitting next to Lloyd on a table, rang. He glanced at the caller ID, which read Dart Cell and answered. "What is it, Dart?"

"We have a problem," said a harassed sounding Dart.

"And what problem would that be?" asked Lloyd. He heard a whip crack in the background and twitched so badly that he almost dropped the phone.

"Rose refuses to come if she can't wear her dominatrix outfit."

"Then leave her there and come to the party without her," said Lloyd as if that was the most obvious solution in the world.

"We can't. She's bringing the hamburger patties."

"Well, you do have a point," said Lloyd. "But can't you just take the food and run?"

"Hold on," said Dart, "I've got an idea." Lloyd sighed, thinking about how badly Dart's plans usually went and then twitched at the sound of the whip cracking again.

"Rose," Lloyd heard, "you don't want to ruin your outfit by swimming in it, do you?"

"Well, no…" conceded Rose. "But I could always buy another one on Ebay!"

"You can't come to the party if you wear that," Dart told Rose. "Lloyd said so."

"I said no such thing!" yelled Lloyd into the phone. "You were the one who suggested that!"

"What did my darling Lloyd just say?" Rose said sweetly.

"He said, 'Damn straight. Dart is telling you the complete truth,'" Dart lied.

Lloyd rolled his eyes. "You are a terrible liar, Feld."

"And he also said that if you lie to Dart- I mean me, and wear the outfit under something else, he will hate you forever and ever and never invite you to his house again." Rose gasped.

"Okay, okay. I comply. But can I bring my whip?"

"So long as you don't hit anyone with it."

"Okay."

Dart spoke to Lloyd again. "Problem solved, Lloyd. See you in a few minutes."

"Somebody shoot me please," muttered Lloyd as he hung up the phone and Haschel and Albert entered the patio area.

"Zidan is a psycho!" Haschel was saying to Albert.

"I concur," said Albert. "Did you see him headbutt that Italian player? That's probably the reason the French lost the World Cup to those guys!"

"Hello, everyone!" said Haschel cheerily as he and Albert placed what they had brought on the food table.

"Haschel brought corn on the cob and I brought french fries," Albert told Lloyd as he and Haschel joined the group over at the pool chairs.

Lloyd sighed. "Whatever." As Haschel and Albert seated themselves, he moved his chair a bit closer to the safety of the house. _'If worse comes to worse,'_ he thought, _'I can always run inside and lock the lot of them out. With my Wingly speed, they'll never be able to catch me. Well, except for Meru but she has no reasons to pursue me. Except if Rose bribed her into doing so, but ever since Rose almost killed her with those brownies, Meru has been rightfully wary of Rose. Unless Rose were to pay Meru a considerable-"_

The tangled train of Lloyd's thoughts was derailed with the arrival of Dart, Shana, and the whip toting Rose. Kongol closely followed them onto the elaborately tiled patio. "Dart and I brought desserts!" chirped Shana, placing a stack of boxes on the food table.

Rose dropped a large insulated lunchbox on the table with a thud. "Hamburger patties," she explained.

Kongol was carrying a duffel bag, which he now opened. The smell of rotting flesh wafted out onto the breeze and made several of the people gathered gag. He unceremoniously upended the bag and the contents fell onto the tiles, causing Lloyd to wince. "I bring meat too," he said in his halting English.

Dart unsheathed his sword and poked it a couple of times before using his toe to flip it over. "Is that a dead body, Kongol?" asked Miranda, getting up from her seat by the pool to take a closer look.

"Yes."

Dart leaned crouched down to examine the half rotted face. He jumped back moments later. "Holy shit! It's Lavitz! We are _not_ eating Lavitz, dude!"

"Sorry," the Giganto said apologetically. "I never friend Lavitz."

Dart was very chill about the whole thing. "It's okay. Well, we can't just leave this old thing sitting out here on the patio, can we? It'll be unappetizing. Into the pool with the corpse!" He kicked the body and it flew up in the air before landing in the pool with a splash as Lloyd looked just about to have an aneurysm. He stood and grabbed the printouts of the house rules before handing them out to everyone.

"Considering what happened during our last little bash, I think it's time I introduced my house rules to the lot of you," Lloyd said. "Does anyone want to do me a favor and read the rules out loud?"

Before Lloyd even finished speaking, Rose started reading off the list, which consisted of 20 items ranging from everything from which rooms had free access and which rooms (the locked ones) were not to be gone inside and how no one was supposed to go upstairs to consequences for breaking the rules (death). Surprisingly, Rose read the entire list in one breath.

"You can start partying now," said Lloyd once Rose was done, "if no one has any -"

He was cut off by Meru screaming, "WOOOO! CANNONBALL!" and jumping into the pool. Lloyd sagged back into his chair and Rose pulled her chair up beside his.

"What's wrong, darling?" Rose asked uncharacteristically sweetly as she stroked his lower arm.

"I think I'm gonna be sick," Lloyd muttered, holding his head in his hands.

"You're sick?" Rose said. "Do you want me to kiss you all better?"

Lloyd stood up very fast, knocking over his chair and Rose's because of their close proximity. "You're the one who's making me sick, woman!" he screamed at her before running inside his house and going all the way up to his library. He unlocked the door with his key and relocked it once he was inside. He didn't dare turn on a light, afraid that one of the Dragoons would see it and come looking for him. He crept over to the windows and carefully opened the shades just enough for him to see the patio area. What he saw was both shocking and amusing at the same time.

(You know you love it. Now give me some feedback, _PLEASE_! Is this good? Do I need to rework it? Should I trash the story completely? You gotta let me know people and the best way to do that is to REVIEW!)


	6. Christmas in July: Part 3

(I'm baaaack! Relatively short wait, eh? In anycase, this is the last chapter of the Barbecue Arc as I've taken to calling it in my head so it'll probably be the last update for awhile unless inspiration strikes quickly. But never fear; as long as the Dragoons and food exist there will always be more chapters. Unless I just get sick and tired of this thing, which I highly doubt. Anyway, onto more important things, like saying hooray and thanks to the positive reviews I got on the last chappie and… 

**DISCLAIMER:****I DON'T OWN LEGEND OF DRAGOON! DON'T YOU FOOLS KNOW THAT BY NOW? GOSH!**)

_**Chapter 6: Christmas in July Pt. 3: Return of the Brownies**_

Lloyd's eyes widened at the scene he saw on the patio. He could see that the whole lot of them, except Kongol who was obeying the rule about him not going in the pool, were participating in what looked like a rousing game of Dive for Lavitz's Rotting Corpse. Lloyd sank into a leather armchair and started to rub at his temples. "Why on earth did I let them come here?" he moaned in a whiny voice. "What the hell was I thinking?"

Lloyd sat quietly in his chair for a few short moments before he heard them outside, calling for him. "Lloyd!" bellowed Kongol. "Where you go?!"

'_Maybe I should go back,'_ Lloyd thought. _'Who knows; maybe they'll find a way to destroy the patio or something. I didn't make any rules about destroying the patio.'_ He thought it over some more before happening upon a very scary thought: _'They can make explosives from things in the kitchen.'_

Lloyd was out of the library in a heartbeat and, forgetting to lock the library door, raced down the stairs to the scene of the party. He burst onto the patio screaming, "Don't blow anything up!" Everyone was still standing around the pool and they gave him funny looks.

Albert was the first to speak. "What in the name of the Divine Tree are you talking about?" he asked.

"Uhh…Heheh," said a suddenly sheepish Lloyd, scratching the back of his neck with one of his hands. "Nothing. Nothing at all. Anyone hungry?"

"Sure," said Meru, vaulting out of the pool and flying over to the food table. Haschel ignited the grill and put some hamburger patties on it.

"She would have started eating about a half hour ago," said Miranda as Meru piled potato salad, pasta salad and salad salad onto a paper plate, "but Shana said we should wait for you." She shot a glare at Shana, indicating that Meru wasn't the only one who had been hungry.

Rose was poring over the table's contents, paying particular attention to the desserts that Shana had brought. Lloyd, even though he hated her, wanted to make sure that his guests were happy so he went over to her. "Is everything alright?" he inquired.

"No," she pouted. "Shana didn't make any brownies."

Lloyd called Shana over. "You didn't make brownies?"

"I did," she said apologetically, "but Dart ate them all on the way to Rose's house."

"Well, then," said Rose in a thoughtful voice before Lloyd could reply to Shana, "I guess I'll just have to make some brownies myself."

"Nooooo!" screamed Meru and Lloyd, instantly flashbacking to the last time Rose had made brownies. Even though Lloyd hadn't eaten them, he could tell that they were deadly. And as for Meru, well, she had almost died because of them.

However, their screams went unheard by Rose, as she was already inside Lloyd's state of the art kitchen. The whole thing was really just for show; Lloyd ate takeout more often than not and if he was having business associates over for dinner he called a catering company. Lloyd and the Dragoons followed Shana into the kitchen.

"Rose," Shana shouted, glowing in the way that nothing but inspiration (or really good sex) can make you, "I challenge you to a brownie bakeoff!"

"Oh, sniz-ap!" shouted Dart, Meru, and Haschel in perfect, unrehearsed unison. It was quiet for an awkward moment afterwards, with not even a cricket to be heard.

Kongol sniffed the air. "You smell burning?" he said in his halting English.

"The burgers!" shouted Haschel, who ran outside with a speed much younger than his years. He came back a few moments later with a platter of charcoal- I mean extremely burnt hamburgers.

Rose was still tearing around the kitchen, surprisingly finding everything that she wanted and needed to make her Brownies of Doom. Shana repeated her challenge. "Rose. You. Me. Brownie bakeoff. Now." Rose smiled happily at the former Light Dragoon and everyone except Shana shrank back a little at the sight.

"Okay," she chirped cheerfully, the thought of even more brownies making her happy. Shana joined Rose in her hunt for supplies, running a much more efficient hunt. Before five minutes was up, both women had assembled materials at separate workstations.

"Okay, ladies," Albert said, slipping into the role of referee and announcer. "Here's the rules: you must follow this recipe," with that he gestured to Kongol who held up a giant recipe card that had the recipe Shana usually used photocopied onto it, "but minor tweaking is alright." You could tell the recipe card was photocopied because the quality was really grainy and crappy. (A/N: See Ch. 1 for the recipe.)

Lloyd face-palmed. "Where in the name of the Divine Tree did they get that?" he muttered. No one noticed; they were too busy watching the show.

Albert continued his explanation of the rules. "After you both finish baking, the group of us-" He was interrupted by a slight cough from Meru, who had situated herself on one of the counters. "Okay," Albert conceded. "Everyone but Meru will taste test both batches of brownies. Then we will vote on which ones are better. Whoever gets the most votes wins. Got it?" Shana and Rose nodded. "Okay then. Bakeoff commence!"

"Oh, man!" said Dart excitedly, sitting on top of the kitchen table. "This is just like Iron Chef!"

"Shh!" everyone but the bakers and Lloyd hissed at him. The rest of the Dragoons were watching the bakeoff attentively as Lloyd had terrible daydreams about what state his kitchen would be in once the whole thing was over.

The first thing Shana did was run over to one of Lloyd's four ovens and preheat it to 350 degrees. Rose copied Shana, except she set her oven to 400 degrees, too high to make proper brownies. Meru hopped up on an unused counter to get a better view, and what a view it turned out to be.

Shana's side of the kitchen was very calm. She was carefully measuring out her dry ingredients into her huge silver mixing bowl. On the stove, she had her butter and chocolate melting in a pot. Every so often, she stopped messing with the dry ingredients to stir the stuff on the stove so that it wouldn't burn. Once all of her dry ingredients were in the bowl, she pulled a baking pan out form under her workstation and opened up a container labeled Crisco, using it to grease the pan.

"Ahh," said Miranda sarcastically sighing. "Gotta love that lard in a can smell." Haschel chuckled at this and set the platter of charcoal burgers, which he had been holding for awhile, on the counter next to Meru as Shana mixed her dry ingredients with the now melted chocolate and butter. This mixture went into the Crisco coated baking pan and all of that went into the oven.

Rose's workspace was the complete opposite of Shana's: chaotic. Somehow, she had gotten flour everywhere without even opening a package of flour. And when I say everywhere, I mean _everywhere_; the nearby walls, the floor around her feet, her body, and Dart, who had been nearest to her at the beginning of the contest, were covered with a thin layer of flour.

Rose put her chocolate and butter mixture, both of which looked to be more than the recipe called for, into a soup bowl which she put in the microwave. She set the microwave for two minutes before turning to her other ingredients, which included eggs. She dumped the lot of them into an available blender. It is worth mentioning that the two eggs were the only thing she had the proper amount of, but she didn't even bother cracking them open before putting them in the blender.

Anyway, when the microwave dinged its completion, she poured the half melted contents into the blender with the mishmash of ingredients and pressed the puree button, almost forgetting to put the lid on the blender. Then Rose appeared to drift off into dreamland for awhile. When the blender started making noises like it was breaking, she came to and, with great difficulty, dumped her rather dry looking brownie batter into her ungreased pan. Then she popped it in the oven and happily hopped up on her flour coated counter.

Shana was smirking, a rare thing for the usually kind Dragoon, as she watched the clock to make sure she removed her brownies at exactly the right moment. Kongol felt a shiver go down his spine as he saw the look on her face. "The world is backwards," he mumbled, getting a nod of agreement from Meru, Haschel, and Miranda. Lloyd looked just about to cry, though no one, including him, quite knew why.

After 15 minutes, half of the recommended brownie baking time, had passed, the room started to smell of smoke. "Haschel," said Miranda. "You didn't leave any burgers on the grill, did you?"

"I swear on the life of my grandson that I didn't."

Lloyd screamed like a little girl, pointing to Rose's oven, which was spewing flames. Lloyd was the only one flipping out, though. Meru calmly used her Water Dragoon powers to put out the fire. Shana helpfully handed Rose a pair of heatproof oven mitts and Rose removed the brownies, which were on fire themselves. She put them in the sink and ran water on them; the flames went out. Then she reached in with a knife and cut them into pieces, but didn't remove them from the pan.

Once all the fires were put out and the smoke smell left the room, a delightfully chocolaty smell started to fill the kitchen. A moment later, Dart left to find the bathroom and it wasn't much longer after that when Shana was taking her moist, yummy looking brownies out of the oven. She sliced them into perfect squares and stacked the neatly on a flowered plate she had found somewhere as she smiled innocently.

"Let's try Shana's first," suggested Albert. The group, minus Meru, descended upon the flowered plate, leaving not one single crumb for the still absent Dart. "Okay," said Albert. "Now let's try Rose's." Everyone hesitantly reached into the sink and removed a brownie from Rose's pan, Lloyd the most cautious of all. Everyone was gagging from the first bit, but made a point to be polite and finish their brownies, mostly because they didn't want Rose to kill them. "Well, then," said Albert. "I guess it's time to vote on the winner. All in favor of Shana?" Before anyone could raise their hand, Lloyd passed out, the stress of the day combined with Rose's brownies finally getting to him, and he hit the floor with a thud.

It was many hours before Lloyd woke, still on the tiles of the kitchen floor where he had fallen. He sat up and sneezed, noting that the air was heavy with the scent of chili powder. Lloyd got to his feet wondering if he even owned any chili powder. Then he caught sight of his pool, or at least what had been his pool, and all his thought processes stopped. "Oh my fucking god." He blinked a few times, trying to make the image before his eyes disappear. "My pool!" he cried, finally realizing what he was seeing was the reality.

Where Lloyd's pool had been was now a charred looking hole that appeared to be slightly wider and longer than it had been as a pool. There were mosaic tiles from the pool's bottom all over the patio and it looked like one of Lavitz's arms was in a nearby tree. Lloyd didn't even want to think about where the rest of Lavitz was. Lloyd marched into his office and picked up the phone, dialing Albert's number because he figured that's where he could find the most reasonable explanation for the state of his patio. "Hello?" asked Albert.

"Hi. It's Lloyd."

"I figured you'd be calling me. I suspect you want to know what happened to your pool. Am I right?"

"Duh," said Lloyd, his voice flat and emotionless.

"Well, because none of us wanted Rose to kill us, we voted her the winner of the bakeoff. But it seems Shana has a worse temper than anyone imagined because she made a bomb out of common household ingredients-"

"Like chili powder?" Lloyd interrupted.

"Yes," said Albert. "Like chili powder." He cleared his throat before continuing. "Anyway, she chased us all outside with it and then threw it into the pool, resulting in your current patio state. I'm sure Shana would be more than willing to pay for the damages."

"Thanks for the info," Lloyd said, making a note on the notepad next to his phone. "I'll give her a call tomorrow. Bye."

Without waiting for a response, Lloyd hung up the phone and went back outside to gaze mournfully at what was left of his pool. He knew that he wouldn't call Shana because the wrecked yard was entirely his fault. "How could I have been so stupid as to let them come here again?" he moaned, banging his head against the wall a few times before getting on the phone and calling the company that had put his pool in to arrange for them to come and put it in again.

(So there you have it. That's the end of this particular arc, but I will return if you want me to! Whether or not I return depends on what the readers YOU! think so drop me a review!)


	7. Exposition

_Putting this back up because I finally got around to writing Chapter 8._

_**Chapter 7: Exposition**_

Albert, Dart, and Haschel were having a drink in Bale Tavern. They weren't completely smashed just yet, but were well on their way there. Meru, who was a barmaid in the tavern by day and a dancer by night, brought them their third round of drinks. Actually, it was only Albert's second pint of ale, but he figured that Dart and Haschel would have no problem finishing off the drinks he didn't.

"So you guys have already talked about what happened to you after the party at Lloyd's house," Albert asked them as they divided Albert's unwanted ale between their pair of tankards, "but what have the others been up to?" He knew that Dart had had to go home and somehow deal with his unhappy significant other. How he had done so was something that he had not disclosed to Haschel and Albert. In the meantime, Haschel had gone to a pub, as he did almost every day, and had picked up the bar maid at that particular pub. His girlfriend of the week seemed to be on the way out, though, as Albert noticed the older man giving Meru's coworker suggestive looks.

"Kongol went to look for more Gigantos," Dart said. "_Again._"

"And Miranda went back to Mille Seseau to visit Queen Theresa," said Haschel. Then his face lit up, as if he had just remembered something really important. "Oh!" he cried loudly. "Do you want to hear something really funny?" he continued, reverting to a loud yet hushed, drunken whisper.

"_What?_" Dart replied in a ridiculous imitation of Haschel.

"Rose said that she was going to _find_ herself!" Dart started laughing uproariously at that news. He was laughing so hard, in fact, that he fell out of his chair and onto the floor where he continued to laugh.

"Did she say why?" Albert asked, speaking a little louder than he normally would have to be heard over Dart's drunken mirth.

Haschel cleared his throat, his apparent fight against breaking into the same laughter as Dart showing on his face. "She uh…She says her darling Lloyd will never love her if she doesn't grow up some."

"Hmm…" Albert hmmed. He thought it was a reasonable claim considering her behavior whenever she was around Lloyd. They'd even had to stop her from raping him when he had passed out during the brownie bakeoff. Not like Albert had told Lloyd about that, or like he ever would for that matter.

"Well, you know what I've been meaning to do for awhile now?" Albert said to Dart and Haschel after thinking it over for a moment to be sure he was making the right decision.

"What?" asked a barely calm Dart as he climbed back into his chair.

"I was thinking of checking on the state of things in Kazas. Since my uncle is dead, the civil war is over so that land belongs to me. The economic situation was quite dire the last time we were there, so maybe…" Albert trailed off as he realized that Dart and Haschel weren't listening.

"You know what this means?" Dart said to Haschel and Meru, who had stopped working to listen to their conversation.

"Road trip!" yelled Meru and Haschel in unison, drawing many stares from the tavern's other customers. "This is gonna be so much fun!" continued Meru, whipping out her cellphone. "I can call Kongol and Rose and Miranda and Lloyd too!"

"Sorry, Meru," said Albert nobly, because after all he was a freaking king and couldn't afford to piss people off. "I was kind of thinking something more along the lines of making the trip with just Dart and Haschel. Maybe Lloyd too," he added as an afterthought. "Can I borrow your phone to call him?"

Meru's mood was visibly dampened but she handed her phone over to Albert just the same. "Of course," she said halfheartedly. "The customer is always right, after all. Lloyd is speed dial number eight."

"Why number eight?" asked Haschel curiously as a very confused Albert assessed the keypad of Meru's high tech phone to try and find the number eight.

"Well," said Meru, thoughtfully tapping her bottom lip with her index finger. "Well, Dart is number one because he's the leader," she said after a moment. "And Albert is number two because he's the king. Kongol is number three because he's the last member of his race. Haschel is four because he's my sidekick. Charle is number five because she's one of my Wingly homies. My parents are number six because they gave me life. Miranda is number seven because I put the rest of the Dragoons, apart from Shana because Shana's always near Dart. Lloyd is number eight because I feel bad about how we always destroy his house. And Rose is number nine because she almost killed me with her brownies and then that other time she stabbed me with her rapier, but I had to put her somewhere." All of that was in one breath.

"Ah-ha!" said Albert triumphantly as soon as Meru had finished her long winded explanation; he had found the number eight. He pressed the button and Lloyd picked up on the second ring.

"I swear on the Divine Tree, Meru," he roared, "if you don't stop calling me all the time to compare Wingly experiences, I'm going to have to add you to my ever growing list of people I need to get restraining orders against." Lloyd was sitting in front of his computer and opened up the Microsoft Word document where he had the list and prepared to add her name, only Albert (on the other end of the phone line) couldn't see this.

Albert looked at Meru questioningly. Meru made a sheepish face and said, "Uh…hehehe…I gotta get back to work." Then she proceeded to do exactly as she said.

"Well?" Lloyd questioned. "What have you got to say for yourself, Meru?"

"I'm not Meru," said Albert. "It's me, Albert. I was wondering if you'd like to take a break from whatever it is that has made you so filthy rich and go on a road trip this weekend."

"That depends," said Lloyd warily. "Who's going?"

"Me, you, Dart, and Haschel."

"Rose isn't going?"

"No."

Lloyd let out an audible sigh of relief. "Okay. I'm up for it. Where are we going? And where should I meet up with you?"

"We're going to be evaluating the state of things in Kazas and the Black Castle, see how much work it's going to take to get the area back on its feet. And do you think you could come to Indels Castle Friday morning? At around eleven o' clock?"

"Got it," said Lloyd, making a note in his day planner, which was open on his desk beside his computer.

"Great," said Albert. "We'll see you then. Bye." He closed the cell phone with a snap and slipped it onto Meru's tray as she passed by with it full of pints of ale. "Thank you," he told her when she passed by again after dropping off the drinks. She nodded at him as she continued to go about her job, possibly to avoid being questioned about her frequent phone calls to Lloyd.

Since Friday was the day after tomorrow, Dart and Haschel just stayed over at Indels Castle and tried to keep out of Albert's way as he tied up loose ends before the weekend, which was harder than it sounds because this is Dart and Haschel we're talking about here after all. When 10 AM rolled around on Friday, Albert, Haschel, and Dart were all standing around in the entrance hall of the Indels Castle, waiting for Lloyd to arrive so they could leave for Kazas.

"If he's not here by eleven," Albert said, checking his watch professionally, "then we'll just leave. He does know where we're going, after all, so it shouldn't be hard for him to catch up to us. Especially because he's a Wingly."

As soon as the words left the king's mouth, Lloyd burst into the entrance hall of the castle, screaming frantically at the doormen to shut the doors. As soon as the doormen got the door shut, something large thudded into the outside of the large double doors.

"What the hell was that?" said Haschel, voicing the question that was on everybody's mind.

Lloyd, standing doubled over with his hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath, said, "Rose- found out- attacked me- followed me," between massive, panting gasps.

"Let me in, Lloyd darling!" said Rose's pleading voice from outside. At the sound, Lloyd dropped to the floor in a dead faint with a thump.

Albert sighed. "I guess we'll have to fly out of here as Dragoons, then," he said, "and get the limo to meet up with us a town or two over." He made the Dragoon transformation and Dart and Haschel followed suit.

Just as they were about to head out, Dart looked back at Lloyd's comatose body. "What about him?" he asked.

"Hmm…," said Albert. "Just leave him there. If he gets to be too much of a bother there on the floor, someone will put him up in one of the guest rooms. And when he wakes, he knows where we're going, even though he might stay here knowing that Rose knows our intended destination."

"Leave him on the floor?" Haschel inquired, scratching the top of his head confusedly.

"Yes," said Albert matter of factly. "The way I see it, it's no different than having a bear skin rug in front of a fireplace. Except that it's a comatose Wingly in my entrance hall."

As they flew out of the castle, Dart muttered, "Whatever happened to Rose finding herself?"

_Review and then move on to the continuation of this lovely little storyline!_


	8. CAMPFIRESONG

_So after a very long absence with this one, I have returned. Hopefully I've still capture the old humor of this story as I've taken to writing more serious things as of late. Sorry it took so long to write this. And, as you can guess by the openendedness of this, there is going to eventually be a Chapter 9 that takes place in Kazas._

**Chapter 8: This is a C-A-M-P-F-I-R-E-S-O-N-G Song…Not really…**

Albert, Dart, and Haschel had stopped in a clearing by a stream to eat lunch by the time Lloyd caught up to them. "Why did you just leave me on the floor?" he asked them, sounding considerably less than happy.

"We didn't know what else to do?" said Dart uncertainly with a shrug. He unwrapped a turkey sandwich, made by Shana, and began to eat.

"It turned out alright, didn't it?" Albert said, taking a bite of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

"Yes," Lloyd admitted sulkily. "But-," he began before being cut off by Haschel.

"No harm done, then," Haschel told Lloyd. Haschel wasn't one to eat lunch so he was lying in the grass with his eyes closed and his arms folded beneath his head.

"I'm afraid Rose might be able to track us," Lloyd admitted.

"Well," Albert said reasonably, "if she finds us then we'll just have to distract her and flee. It shouldn't be too difficult."

"Then obviously you have no idea of the threat that Rose can pose," Lloyd said, his egg salad sandwich all but forgotten in his hands. Dart giggled because Lloyd had unintentionally spoken in rhyme.

"Just get a restraining order and be done with it," Dart said dismissively, rolling his eyes when Lloyd wasn't looking.

Meanwhile, Rose was hiding behind a very large tree, watching the men eat their lunches. She didn't want to ruin their manly expedition filled with man time but she wanted so very badly to show her darling Lloyd how much she had changed on her quest to find herself. When he'd left Indels Castle, she'd followed at a discreet distance behind him. Now she was waiting for the proper moment to reveal her presence to them and show her improvement.

When the guys finished their lunch, Rose gave them a five minute start before following them. Now that lunch time had passed, it didn't feel like very long before night fell. It got properly dark as the men (and their stealthy follower Rose, who was still unnoticed) to decide to camp for the night. Haschel, well versed in the art of traveling without money or magic, set up wood for a campfire and Dart, having changed to his Dragoon form for precisely this purpose, shot a tightly controlled jet of fire at the carefully arranged sticks, helping a nice warm fire light.

Dart, Haschel, Albert, and Lloyd all took turns roasting bread and weenies over the fire. Haschel produced a jug of wine from his pack and the four of them passed it around. Dart and Haschel drank quite a bit of it, becoming quite inebriated. Albert drank a little, just enough to quench his kingly thirst. Lloyd drank nothing; he was still afraid that Rose was following them and wanted to be sober enough to flee if she happened to turn up.

Rose lurked in the woods, close to their campsite, but far enough away that none of them would stumble upon her if and when they wandered away from the campsite to pee. Rose was laying out her sleeping bag, tired and assuming that the en wouldn't travel any further that night when Albert suddenly remembered something.

"Oh, yesterday I consulted with one of my maids-," Albert said before Haschel interrupted him.

"Oh, consulting, eh? Is that what they call it these days?" Haschel said, intoxication making him loud and lewd. "In my day we just called it a fine old fashioned f—."

Albert cut Haschel off before he could finish his highly inappropriate sentence, raising his voice to be heard over the other man. "And she said that if we wound up camping out we should make – what did she call them? Oh, yes, s'mores."

Everyone stared at him blankly. Albert, not fazed at all by their ignorance, explained it. "How it works is you put a marshmallow on a stick and cook it over a fire, such as the one we have here."

As soon as Rose heard Albert talking about food, her stomach, which had not been filled with a dinner of any sort, grumbled loudly. Lloyd heard it in a pause in Albert's tutorial and jumped a little but didn't say anything in case it was not the bear he thought it was, but a raccoon. He'd already been made a fool of once that day, thanks to Rose, and he didn't want to look stupid again.

Albert was still explaining s'mores, demonstrating for Dart and Haschel the best technique for getting your cooked marshmallow off of the stick (Put the graham cracker with the chocolate beneath the marshmallow and the plain one on top, press down from both sides, and pull out the stick, leaving the marshmallow in the middle of the two crackers).

The smells of melted chocolate and burnt sugar quickly filled the clearing, making it very difficult for Rose to not run out there and take their food. She figured she'd wait until they were asleep before making her move. Apparently, whatever servant had given Albert the s'mores supplies thought that all of the Dragoons were going on the trip. As such, she'd given him way too much. That meant there was plenty left for Rose when the boys banked the fire and laid down to sleep.

She waited until snores filled the area and then waited another ten minutes before creeping into their campsite. As she moved toward the bag that all of the s'mores paraphernalia was in, Rose stepped on a twig.

Although they had appeared to be in a very deep sleep, the one little sound woke them all up. Dart, bleary eyed and still drunk, looked at the dark shape that was Rose and yelled, "Bear!"

"Oh, come _on_!" exclaimed a frustrated Rose. "Your damn fire is crackling more than I just did!"

Lloyd, the only person with no alcohol in his system, had known that the figure by the fire wasn't a bear and wasn't going to panic because he knew that the four of them could kick the ass of whatever bandit tried to rob them. When he heard her voice, though, he screamed and quick as lightning climbed up the nearest tree.

Albert noticed what Rose was reaching for so he grabbed it and tossed it to her. Then he changed to his Dragoon form and flew as fast as he could towards Kazas. Lloyd was the next to follow him with Dart and Haschel bringing up the rear. Rose just shrugged, having gotten what she had entered the campsite for. Lloyd was momentarily forgotten as she sat down on the ground beside the still hot fire to make s'mores.

_Y'all know what to do to keep me happy, don't you?_


End file.
